BY COLIN MIXSON
A Kings County author is offering
Park Slope residents
custom-made poetry covering
any topic and written right before
their eyes in an act that
marries prose — and performance.
“I call it poems on demand,”
said author Lynn Gentry,
a Sunset Park resident.
“It’s performance poetry.”
Gentry, 33, works off a table
and typewriter setup on Fifth
Avenue near Union Street,
where he chats up passersby
to gauge their interests, before
clacking out a poem on
the spot.
This reporter challenged
Gentry to a piece on the newspaper
business, and, after
about 10 minutes of writing,
pausing, pondering, and more
furious typing, was presented
with “Center of the World.”
Within the politics of print
there is a deeper thought at
play
as the changing of the
guard
pushes fear into the fray
and so what does it mean
to give your mind
Knowing half the story
is human interest
and the other half combines
the necessities to keep
the ship afl oat
unaware of how deep the
water goes
and so sits the climate
which all are posed today
to live with conviction
or slowly fade to grey
I hope we write about
the civil unrest
and let the people
decide the rest
COURIER L 28 IFE, AUG. 16-22, 2019
Gentry was inspired by a
performance poet he spotted
at the Oregon Country Fair
while couch surfi ng out west
more than a decade ago, and
he debuted his own act in 2009
on the streets of San Francisco,
where he says folks tend to be
more esoteric than their New
Author Lynn Gentry offers custom-made poems on the streets of Park Slope. Photo by Colin Mixson
York City counterparts.
“You end up fi nding people
more in that mode of exploring
life and journeys and everything
else,” he said.
He’s since moved to ply his
trade in Brooklyn, where he
prefers a Park Slope clientele
over customers in other neighbors,
like Williamsburg, where
he says residents are more interested
in the novelty of his
act, and less in the craft.
“In Park Slope, people are
way more into the idea of doing
something creative, or artistic,”
said Gentry. “With Williamsburg...
some people think
about it as the experience, but
actually engaging with what’s
going on in the moment is not
always the case.”
In his career as a custom poetry
author, Gentry estimates
he’s written some 30,000 original
pieces, of which he seldom
keeps copies, making nearly
every poem unique.
“As far as it goes, it really
is one of a kind, If the only person
that really ends up having
is the person I wrote if for,” he
said.
Contract a poet in Park Slope
Fifth Avenue and Union Street
on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Fridays, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m,
and on Sundays from 12 p.m. to
5 p.m. ($20 suggested donation).
Busking bard
Author sells his custom poetry
on the streets of Park Slope
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